gimley reviewed This Life by Martin Hägglund
Review of 'This Life' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This book, as far as I've gotten, (not all that far) is making an argument and it's not uninteresting. The problem is, it's not one I need to hear, and I am already finding holes in it. For example, eternity (non-finitude) is presented as a situation in which there is nothing that needs to be done, that since you can't die, there's no room for improvement. If that were true, being condemned to hell would be no worse than being in heaven. All eternity is equal. Hence, only finitude has any real stakes and any real choices. I haven't yet chosen whether to continue reading.
My second objection is the idea that this kind of argument is superior to "faith" because it is rational. I don't see the rational finite way of understanding as a given. It presumes what you're trying to prove. From our (or my, at any rate) …
This book, as far as I've gotten, (not all that far) is making an argument and it's not uninteresting. The problem is, it's not one I need to hear, and I am already finding holes in it. For example, eternity (non-finitude) is presented as a situation in which there is nothing that needs to be done, that since you can't die, there's no room for improvement. If that were true, being condemned to hell would be no worse than being in heaven. All eternity is equal. Hence, only finitude has any real stakes and any real choices. I haven't yet chosen whether to continue reading.
My second objection is the idea that this kind of argument is superior to "faith" because it is rational. I don't see the rational finite way of understanding as a given. It presumes what you're trying to prove. From our (or my, at any rate) limited point of view, figuring stuff out can't be trusted. The built in finitude of rational understanding is self-limiting and an article of faith in itself, despite it's seeming convincingness. We don't live in a world of logic but of experience and impose a grid of language on top of our immediate consciousness to "make sense of it." And we then have faith that we DID make sense of it, and pretend that it didn't require any faith.
